5th Sunday after Pentecost
June 24, 2018
35When evening had come, [Jesus said to the disciples,] “Let us go across to the other side.” 36And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. 37A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. 38But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” 39He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. 40He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” 41And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” -Mark 4:35-41
For years as a kid I simply refused to get on roller coasters. I was too afraid. It was too high. It would not be fun to plummet at high speeds toward the ground only to be flung back up again. Until one day I finally got up the courage to try one. I remember nervously standing in line, and then once strapped in the fear built and built and built as the car ticked slowly up the track. And then the moment of pause between up and down, as if even the air stopped moving around us for a moment. And then the rush of the descent. At once terrifying and exhilarating, disorienting and thrilling. And for years I rode them every chance I could get. Every time that fear building, the pause between up and down, and the rush of the ride that followed. The fact that one is always a little afraid when hurtling along a track crashing toward the earth only to be flung up again is part of the excitement. If there wasn’t a little fear it wouldn’t be that thrilling.
It seems to me that the disciples have a similar experience on the sea. This is still early enough in the story that they have a healthy fear and awe of Jesus, and they aren’t quite sure about his request to suddenly cross the sea (lake really) of Galilee. Jesus falls asleep on them and a storm suddenly begins to churn the water. The boat is about to be swamped. The fear is building and building, terrified of what might come. Stuck in a place they cannot get out of. When they wake Jesus, he rebukes the sea, and the wind ceases immediately. It is as if there is not a single particle of air moving, not a person makes a move. Not calm, but a heightened awareness of a moment of great power. Does that moment between up and down last a split second or several minutes, no one is quite sure. And then, though the wind and sea remain calm, the disciples are suddenly flung into a new reality. This rabbi they have chosen to follow commands the very forces of nature. Healing people is one thing, commanding the spirits another, but speaking a word to the sea and it obeys, they have realized they are on a much wilder and perhaps more thrilling ride than they had signed up for.
We often tell this story of the disciples on the sea as one that moves from fear to faith. As if before the disciples didn’t trust Jesus to keep them safe and afterward they did. As if things were rough but then Jesus made things calm and comfortable and nice. But I don’t think that’s what this story is about at all. This is a story about the way in which Jesus has the power to transform both our fear and our faith. When the storm suddenly blows in they are afraid. Afraid for their lives. But they also believe Jesus can do something about it. They have faith. Like most of us who consider ourselves people of faith they probably didn’t really know how they wanted Jesus to fix what was threatening them, they just cried out in desperate hope that he could do something. And after the first moment of stillness, comes a new kind of faith, not just in a distant God but a God infused in the wind and water, the very elements of daily life. And a new kind of fear, not of drowning in the sea but a holy awe, a thrilling yet terrifying realization of the God who has called them into this adventure. Bringing them across the seas to new shores, to new places where God’s grace will bring healing and life through them.
So maybe this isn’t a story about getting faith, but about the ways in which God moves us from a kind of paralyzing fear to the thrilling and sometimes terrifying awe of God’s peace-infusing mission in the world. Perhaps it’s a story of the ways in which God calls us to cross the barriers that keep us and the whole world from that exhilarating if scary opportunity to live into God’s call. Jesus saves them from the storm but sends them careening toward the cross and to opportunity after opportunity to throw themselves into the fray for the sake of God’s healing and restorative work in the world.
It’s the story that some people tell of entering recovery as addicts. Drowning not only in the storm of substance use, but in the internal storms that rage underneath. Hitting a moment of clarity or despair, and then the awesome fear of living into that new-found freedom, and that ongoing, difficult work of living into a new life of recovery. A new life of trusting a God who can silence even the wind and the waves.
It’s the story of some people who finally find their true calling after drowning in work they couldn’t find meaning in but were terrified to leave behind. And then finding the possibility of living into some new direction, some new hope, some new source of meaning. And it’s terrifying to start over, to try something untried, but exhilarating to live into that kind of holy fear of trusting in a God who can silence even the wind and the waves.
It’s the story of some people who have came out of the closet as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. Not all, but some have found themselves drowning in societal shame, in fear of losing those that love them, afraid to be put out of their families, their workplaces, and their homes. And thank to many communities that provide safe haven and welcome, they have found a new life, not always easy, sometimes a bit frightening, but as a bold witness to their trust in a God who can silence even the wind and the waves.
I wonder, then where we today find ourselves beset by storms, beset by wind and waves that hold us in paralyzing fear. Our nation is drowning under policies that tear children from families at the border. We all are at risk of drowning, in some cases literal drowning, from climate change. All of us are in danger from the endless storm of racism and xenophobia that shapes our world. We are in danger of being torn apart, of being lost in the storm. It overwhelms us. We beg for Jesus to wake up.
But when that moment of calm comes in the midst of the storm, when we finally find ourselves in stillness, when that fear is momentarily silenced and we see with greater clarity, we best be prepared for the way in which that moment of stillness is about to launch us into a new kind of holy awe and a new kind of working for peace and calm for all people and all creatures and all things. And we ought to be prepared for the ways in which it will bring us more deeply into relationship with the one who is powerful enough to command even the forces of nature.
That is the prayer we speak and the prayer we sing and the prayer we eat and drink today. A prayer for peace, for calm, for an end to the storm. And a prayer that we might be sent, held safely by the God of the cosmos, into storm-defying work in the world.
-Pastor Steven Wilco
Stewarding the Word 